This post is for people who use Redmine; others are welcome to stay for the ride if they wish.

I’m writing this post mainly so it will turn up in results when people do a web search to find out how to edit multiple issues at once in Redmine (e.g., search://redmine batch edit multiple issues/). I recently did that search, to no avail, and was stumped until someone gave me the answer in IRC.

It turns out the feature is there, a bit hard to find, and more powerful than I expected. Here’s the email I sent to my colleagues about it (lightly edited). I’m too lazy to even make screenshots, but the prose recipe should suffice:

  From: Karl Fogel
  To: The Team
  Subject: Most incredible Redmine hint ever.
  Date: Wed, 02 Nov 2011 18:40:56 -0400
  
  For those using the Redmine issue tracker:
  
  I don't normally like to spam lists with random UI hints, but in this
  case, there is a very powerful capability in Redmine that you probably
  won't spot unless someone tells you about it -- I myself just found it
  out from "_Mischa_The_Evil" in IRC [...].
  
  You can batch-edit a set of issues simultaneously -- change statuses,
  assignees, whatever -- by selecting them from an issues list and then
  right-clicking in the selection (highlighted blue area).  For example:
  
    * Go to http://developer.civiccommons.org/projects/mktplc/issues
  
    * Select some issues using their checkboxes
      (or, use top-of-column green checkmark to select all)
  
    * Put your mouse in the blue selected area.
  
    * Notice how your mouse pointer has a funny stacky-looking icon
      next to it suddenly.  Those crazeeee Redmine developers!
  
    * Right-click, see the magical choices available to you now.
    
    * Weep for joy.  My god, it's full of stars...
  
  As there is no hint in the page content that this latent ability is
  there, I thought I'd better just mail about it.
  
  -Karl

In a followup comment in IRC, after reading this post, _Mischa_The_Evil said:

kfogel: :), nice one… btw: you can also multi-select by clicking anywhere on the issueline (not in inside links) combined with browser-dependent key. Most are ctrl-leftclick. I remember Opera being alt-rightclick (at least in the past, i remember reading something about changing it not so long a ago).